While the contemporary celebration of Valentine’s Day is one more invention of our entrepreneurial imagination, we have to admit that we love it, partly because, like Hallow’een, it has a pagan heart and is a holiday with few obligations. It travels light, with a minimum of carry-on baggage.

But after going through our recipes for pink food we need to be up front: there aren’t any really Italian-AMERICAN, wise-guy Valentine desserts.

We say this, even though we know that by proclaiming that in print, we’re opening the door to a blizzard of email about Cleveland Cassata. (Sorry, in most of the country, strawberries are NOT at their best in February, and this year, even our Florida crop took a terrible hit in the recent freeze.)

Nonetheless, enduring romance and the Italian-American soul cannot be adequately served by token efforts alone: offering a heart-shaped box of chocolates or the additon of cinnamon red-hots to your cannoli filling will not advance the cause of amore, Italian-style.

No—Valentine’s Day, whose roots* are in the Eternal City itself (Rome, not Hoboken), demands something more sophisticated, indeed, nuanced.

First concocted in the mid-19th century, Gaspare Campari’s elixir caught the fancy of wealthy American tourists frequenting his bar in Milan during Prohibition. Perhaps to ease the acquaintance, bartenders devised a cocktail that tempered flavors some found medicinal, with sweet vermouth.

And while Signor Campari’s product formulation remains a trade secret, the recipe for the drink his American patrons favored is not. Taste Campari alone with only soda or tamed by sweet vermouth. Sip something to whet, not dull, your palate and prime your taste buds for pasta and whatever follows.

Cocktail Americano

* 1 oz Campari
* 1 oz sweet red vermouth (or less, to taste)
* Club soda or seltzer
* Wedge of orange, lemon, or lime ( enough to yield at least 2 Tbs of juice)
* Curl of citrus peel or citrus slice for garnish

Half-fill a chilled highball glass (at least 10 oz capacity) with ice cubes.
Measure and pour in the Campari and vermouth.
Squeeze the citrus wedge into the glass.
Top off the glass with the soda and stir with a swizzler.
Garnish with the citrus peel or slice.

Serves 1, but on Valentine’s Day we hope you have reason to make two…

Be aware, not only for its intense rosy hue are we pouring a Valentine’s Day Campari; the aperitivo / digestivo has complex layers of not-too-cloying flavor that include the medieval pharmaceutical, gentian, along with other herbs, tree barks, spices, and citrus rind. It’s an allegory in a glass. Like love itself, this liquore is bittersweet. It’s a kiss with bite.

Here are a few other Valentine’s Day possibilities

Smoked Salmon alla Carbonara
Shrimp Cocktail
Penne alla Vodka
Shrimp Scampi
Pasta con Caviale Rosso (On our other blog, Sarasota Soundings)

Among our own recollections of summers at our grandparents’ cottages on the Connecticut and Rhode Island shorelines, kitchen nostalgia is especially powerful.

Most of the cottages, with their dark, bead-boarded walls, were uninsulated, and the two-by-four spacers between the studs made handy kitchen “shelves” for the staples of an uncomplicated, mid-20th century summer pantry.

With great fondness, we recall the contents of kitchens we knew:

• The glass salt-shakers with rice grains (supposed to absorb moisture and keep the salt from caking).

• Small, dusty tins of dried herbs and spices.

• A somewhat soggy red, yellow, blue, & green cardboard box of Bell’s Poultry Seasoning– an all-purpose dry mix, heavy on sage, that less demanding cooks might have added to meatloaf, burgers, egg salad, and sundry casseroles.

• A jar of garlic salt (or, a head of garlic, if you were Italian).
• A metal-topped shaker of pepperoncini, possibly “borrowed” from the nearest pizzeria.
• A cheater’s canister of commercial grated cheese.
• A large canister of Progresso breadcrumbs.
• A bottle of red wine vinegar– to sprinkle on salads or fried fish.
• A tin of olive oil with a galvanized nail closing the hole from which one would pour the oil.
• A box of less-than-crisp saltines or Ritz Crackers…

…all these would fit on the narrow spacers…

Other kitchen fixtures: A hospital-green bread-box that had lost its enamel gleam held doughnuts and bread that would never stay fresh in the damp salt air. In a an old fridge with the curves and chrome of a Chevy Bel-Aire, you’d see the requisite milk, butter, and eggs of breakfast, the same ingredients that also helped turn stale bread into Sunday French toast or other treats.

The refrigerator might also chill a head of iceberg lettuce, jars of relish and pickles, Italian cold cuts, Portuguese sausage, or rashers of bacon (depending on the family and surrounding neighborhood). It was all the stuff of leisure time and simplified meals, especially if the house were a rental without a full family larder.

Our parents, who grew up during the Depression of the 1930′s, taught us to go clamming and told us how their parents had turned the free mollusks into chowders and pasta sauces… They taught us to make them, too.

There were also siren snacks our families never made or served, novelties we’d heard about and craved because–even if they weren’t forbidden- they were like Hostess Twinkies– foreign to our homes and, thus, exotic.

And in this realm of seductive summer foods just-out-of-reach were stuffies, or baked, stuffed quahog clams.

Contrary to some histories, quahogs, Mercenaria mercenaria, did not earn their Latin moniker because some restaurateurs charge too much for what affable Rhode Islanders charitably describe as “clam meatloaf in an ashtray.” In fact, the nomenclatorial master Linnaeus was aware that native Americans had shaped and drilled the violet-lipped shells of this bivalve to fashion beads, the 17th-century currency known as wampum. So whether the chewy meat of a hard-shelled quahog clam yields the “fried clam strips” of your shore dinner, the chopped clams on your white pizza in New Haven, the creamy and clear chowders of the Eastern Seaboard, or the infamous Rhode Island stuffie—all are from the same beast (which in its youth, is the more respectfully treated cherrystone, or little-neck clam).

The ethnic origins of a recipe are often obscure, and in the melting pot of coastal New England, stuffies are served in many shore restaurants and clam shacks with no Italian identification. But because you’ll see stuffies on printed menus and take-out signs for so many Almost Italian ^® eateries from Rhode Island to New Jersey, we feel compelled to discuss this iconic summer item, usually presented as an appetizer.

We’ve read scores of stuffie recipes and have made them ourselves, in the hope of achieving some sort of clam epiphany. As you can see here, they are indeed photogenic. But in our opinion, these blue-collar cousins of Clams Casino came about as a way to stretch a few tough clams and use up some of those beach cottage kitchen staples before the rental week was over.

Sadly, we have to conclude that combining chopped mollusk meat with breadcrumbs, seasonings,* and fat (in some recipes enough butter to flood the Ocean State), doesn’t show Mercenaria mercenaria any respect… And respect, as all our readers know, is what the food of Wise Guys demands.

We don’t have a problem with the individual elements of the generic baked stuffie so much as we do with the smothering of perfectly innocent clams. So we’ve taken the most basic ingredients and left each to play its role in a dish that we think any stuffie lover will also enjoy. Viva le vongole!

Pasta alle Vongole in Bianco con Pangrattato e Gremolata
Pasta with Clams and Breadcrumbs

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Linguine
Olive oil
2 Large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
Freshly-grated zest of one lemon
Freshly-ground black pepper
1 tsp. pepperoncini (red pepper flakes, more or less to taste)
1/2 Cup dry white wine
1 Cup chopped clams,with up to 3/4 cup of their liquid (Use fresh or canned clams)
1 Cup unseasoned fine, dry bread crumbs
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
One lemon, quartered

Preparation:

Heat a large pot with four to six quarts of salted water to a full, rolling boil. Add the linguine, stirring as it goes into the water. Cook until the pasta has reached the al dente state, then drain in a colander.

Meanwhile, as the water comes to the boil, heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic, lemon zest, pepperoncini, and a few grinds of black pepper. Sauté for a minute or two until the garlic and lemon begin to release their fragrance.

Raise the heat to high and add the wine. Allow the wine to boil for a minute or two to evaporate the alcohol.

Add the clams with their liquid and reduce the heat to medium-low.

Add the breadcrumbs and parsley; stir to combine.

Slide the drained pasta into the sauté pan. With a pair of tongs or two wooden spoons, gently stir the strands of linguine into the clam and breadcrumb mixture, coating the pasta as evenly as possible.

To Serve:

Divide the pasta equally among shallow bowls and serve, garnished with lemon wedges.

Serves four

We love connecting the dots, so here’s the rest of the story:

Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

In 1948 neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini cast Ingrid Bergman in his stark drama, Stromboli, about survivors of World War II trying to make a life on the isolated island. (Obligingly, the volcano erupted during the shoot. ) Although the film, released in the U.S. in 1950, received only mixed reviews, it caught the attention of people who might never have had any interest in Italian cinéma verité. The Hollywood tabloids and newsreels made sure that movie fans around the world learned that everyone’s favorite nun was having a love affair with her director. (In 1945, Ms. Bergman had starred opposite Bing Crosby in The Bells of St Mary’s).

The real volcano on Stromboli, as well as a mediocre film, were eclipsed by the pyrotechnics of what was then the scandalous Bergman-Rossellini affair. (Remember, those were witch-hunting years in Hollywood, and the lovers found that their phones rang less and less as American producers backed away from anyone whose private life might attract the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee.)

Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

Meanwhile, in a small town south of Philadelphia, another drama—one with far greater consequences for Italian-American gastronomic history—was about to unfold. Or perhaps we should say enfold. Sometime in 1950 (according to many self-corroborating sources), Nazzereno Romano, owner of Romano’s Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria in Essington, Pennsylvania, rolled up some cheese and cold-cuts in his pizza dough. He baked the loaf and then sliced it to expose the attractive, flavor-packed spiral within. ‘Nat’ Romano is reported to have asked his customers what he should call his creation. We can imagine that a copy of The National Enquirer might have been at hand because the sources claim that someone blurted out “Stromboli!” and the name stuck like mozzarella on a hot pan.

Salame Stromboli

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Pizza dough *
Flour for dusting the dough
1/4 Lb. Genoa salami, thinly sliced (9 slices)
1/4 Lb. Provolone, thinly sliced
1/4 Lb. Pepperoni, thinly sliced (9 slices) **
1/4 Lb. Whole milk mozzarella, shredded
Olive oil

Preparation:

Let the pizza dough rest and come to room temperature for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Cover a sheet pan with aluminum foil or parchment and set aside.

Divide the dough into two portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll and stretch each portion into a rectangle approximately 10 by 14 inches.

With one of the 10-inch sides facing you, place the slices of Genoa across the dough, starting at the end nearest to you, leaving approximately 1 inch at each side exposed (for sealing the dough when it’s rolled). You should cover about 2/3 of the rectangle of dough with the 9 slices by slightly overlapping them. Leave 1/3 of the dough (farthest away from you) unlayered.

Next, place the slices of provolone over the Genoa, finishing with the slices of pepperoni atop the provolone.

Again, starting at the end nearest to you and working away from yourself toward the middle, sprinkle the shredded mozzarella onto the Genoa/provolone/pepperoni, extending the mozzarella to cover approximately 3/4 of the rectangle.

With both hands, carefully roll the dough, jelly-roll style, starting with the end closest to you. Place the stromboli, seam-side down, on the sheet pan. Gently pinch and tuck in the the ends of the roll to seal in the stuffing. Cut three shallow slits in the top of each of the stromboli as steam-vents. Lightly brush the top of the roll with olive oil.

Repeat with the second portion of dough. You can bake both rolls in the same pan if you leave at least 4 inches between them.

Bake the stromboli for approximately 30 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing.

Each roll will serve four as part of a Super Bowl spread.

Spinach & Cheese Stromboli

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Pizza dough
2 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Lb. Frozen spinach, thawed and drained
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Cup Whole milk mozzarella, shredded
1/4 Cup freshly grated Parmesan
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Let the pizza dough rest and come to room temperature for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Cover a sheet pan with aluminum foil or parchment and set aside.

Heat a large, non-reactive pot, over medium heat, then add the oil. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute, then add the spinach. Season with salt and pepper, and toss with kitchen tongs, to coat the spinach with the oil. Continue tossing and stirring until the spinach has wilted. Remove from the heat and allow the spinach to cool to room temperature. When the spinach has cooled, pour into a bowl, then mix in the cheeses, nutmeg, and parsley.

Divide the dough into two portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a rectangle of approximately 10 by 14 inches.

With one of the 10-inch sides facing you, place half the spinach/cheese mixture at the end nearest to you, leaving approximately 1/2 inch at the sides exposed (for sealing the dough). Spread the mixture out so that it covers approximately 2/3 of the stromboli. Roll the dough, jelly-roll style, starting with the end closest to you. Repeat with the second portion of dough.

With both hands, carefully roll the dough, jelly-roll style, starting with the end closest to you. Place the stromboli, seam-side down, on the sheet pan. Gently pinch and tuck in the the ends of the roll to seal in the stuffing. Cut three shallow slits in the top of each of the stromboli as steam-vents. Lightly brush the top of the roll with olive oil.

Each stromboli can be used to placate four vegetarians, if indeed, you have invited any to your Super Bowl gathering.

And for those who would like to stick to the Almost Italian theme, we’re providing links to other game-day favorites from our earlier posts. If my grandfather and great-uncles had known they could enjoy these treats AND get to watch TV, they might have left Sicily a generation earlier!

Stimparata

Antipasto Platter

Cherry Pepper Shooters

Sausage and Peppers

Tuscan Chicken Wings

And finally, we invite Almost Italian Super Bowl fans seeking something more substantial than snacks to browse our Table of Contents.

Photograph © 2009, Skip Lombardi

During the holiday season, when my grandfather, uncles, and I were likely to get underfoot in the kitchen, my grandmother used to serve this salad in self-defense.

She would put together a big platter of sliced fennel dressed with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. Then, adding a handful of sliced mushrooms and a few shavings of Parmesan cheese, she’d march us all back into the living room to snack and watch whatever “big game” was on TV. Call my response Pavlovian, but even now, I get the urge for finocchio whenever I hear Frank Deford wax eloquent or indignant about college bowl games.

While some Italian-American restaurants serve fennel as part of the antipasto platter, these days diners are more apt to encounter fresh fennel in uptown compositions that involve oranges, pears, and nuts. Meanwhile, the casalinga treatment continues to be a salad like Insalata di Finocchio, Funghi e Parmigiano.

Ingredients:

1 Large fennel bulb
4 – 6 Large button mushrooms
Block of Parmigiano (See Notes)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Salt & freshly-ground black pepper

Preparation:

Remove the stalks at the top of the fennel bulb.* Carefully pare away any discolored portions of the bulb. Cut the bulb vertically into thin slices.

Arrange the slices on a platter without too much overlap, then drizzle with olive oil. Squeeze the juice of one half of the lemon onto the fennel. Season with salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

Slice the mushrooms—again, as thinly as possible—and arrange the slices on the fennel. Drizzle again with olive oil, the juice from the other lemon half, and season again with salt and pepper. Be careful with the salt, though, as the Parmesan will also add saltiness.

Finally, use a vegetable peeler to shave curls of Parmesan over the mushrooms. If you can keep everyone away from the salad, let it sit for up to a half hour at room temperature before serving. (Don’t let this salad sit for more than a half hour, though. The lemon juice will “cook” the fennel and you’ll lose its crisp texture.)

Serve garnished with some of the fennel fronds.

Photo # 1—Close-up of fresh scungilli

Scungilli, very large marine snails, are firmly fixed in Italian-American cuisine—whether served chilled in an insalata di mare or hot in a marinara sauce.  The cold-water species, Busycotypus canaliculatus, channeled whelk, is the one most commonly gathered in New England by those who still bother to fuss with the snails’ labor-intensive preparation. Their meat is dense, chewy, and quite sweet. Larger Italian grocery stores may stock frozen scungilli and most carry tins of “conch”—though the latter are usually different species, from warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and South Asia.

Although they are not as popular today as calamare, or even octopus and eel, scungilli would be one of the dishes a skilled nonna might prepare for a holiday spread, especially for the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.

While cooking scungilli is molto semplice, their cleaning has been described as penitential. That’s why a 29-oz can of prepared scungilli costs as much as $26. Nonetheless, the ease of digital photography has inspired us to pick up where Nonna left off. In this post we will document the cleaning of scungilli for current and future ‘Almost Italians.’ So, if someone brings you a 50-lb bag of live whelks, gather all hands and follow these directions. Then, you can freeze your prepped scungilli meat to use on short notice throughout the year.

Photo # 2—Scungilli ready for steaming

Try to get some seaweed with your live whelks. Rinse the shells and seaweed in clean water. (Scungilli shells may be encrusted with barnacles. Don’t bother trying to remove them.)

Place an inch of water (preferably sea-water) and some seaweed in a large pot. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and steam the whelks for 10 minutes.

Photo # 3—Removing the Scungilli from their Shells

Remove the pot from the burner and uncover. Lift the shells  from the pot with tongs. Place them on a cutting board or large plate until they are cool enough to handle. With a short paring knife or narrow metal spatula, lift open each snail’s operculum, a hard, horn-like oval window protecting the opening of the shell. It may stick to the snail meat or it may come right off. (See photo # 5; the operculum is in the foreground.)

Gently wedge the blade into the shell and let it help you pull out the coiled snail flesh and “attachments” in one piece.

Photo # 4—Scungilli, out of their Shells

The snail parts you want to keep stop at the dark part of the coil, the snail’s digestive tract. Cut that off and discard.

Photo # 5—Deconstructed Whelk
Seaweed, entire snail with innards attached, empty shell, & operculum

Photo # 6—Cooked scungilli, partially trimmed

Cut each of the snails cross-wise in half, to expose the internal digestive tract. Rinse each piece well, leaving an empty channel (Photo # 7)

Photo # 7—Two cleaned scungilli (each has been halved)

With a very sharp knife, carefully pare away the tougher dark bits on the outside of the scungilli pieces.  This is for aesthetic reasons; reserve these dark trimmings to use in a tomato-based sauce (recipe below).

Set aside the pale, waxy and (relatively) more attractive pieces of scungilli for salads or non-tomato sauces.

Photo # 8—Trimmed scungilli ready to slice for salad

At this stage, the trimmed scungilli are still rather tough, but they will be further tenderized by the additional steps and preparations below. Freezing will also tenderize cleaned scungilli. If you slice the scungilli 3/8″ thick before freezing, it will only have to be thawed before marinating. The acids of the marinade will complete the tenderization.

If you’ve been curious (or nostalgic) enough to read this far, buon appetito! But if you don’t think that cleaning wild gastropods is how you want to spend your Saturday afternoon, you can look for a deal on another species…

You may find inexpensive tins of conch.
Their texture is softer, their flavor less briny.

Insalata di Scungilli

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Fresh scungilli  (cooked, cleaned, and sliced as above)
I /8 tsp Finely chopped fresh garlic
1/2 Medium Bermuda onion sliced in very thin rings
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (pepperoncini)
Rind of one lemon, grated
Juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp fresh oregano, finely snipped
1-2 Tbs red wine vinegar
2 Tbs Extra virgin olive oil

1 Large, vine-ripened tomato, coarsely chopped (about 8 oz.)
1/4 Cup finely sliced celery
1/4 Cup coarsely chopped Italian flat-leaf  parsley
1 Tbs Fresh basil, finely snipped
Leaves from one heart of Romaine lettuce

Preparation:

In a 1-quart mixing bowl or other non-reactive container, combine the first 11 ingredients; stir to combine. Cover and set aside in a cool place for at least 30 minutes before serving.  You may combine and chill these ingredients up to 12 hours ahead of serving.

Just before serving, add the remaining ingredients and taste for salt and acidity, adding a little more vinegar or oil, to taste.

To Serve:

Serve in small bowls. You may tear the lettuce into large pieces and toss with the scungilli or keep the leaves whole, adding them as crisp garnishes to each serving.

Serves 4-6 as an antipasto or salad.

Scungilli alla Marinara

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Prepared scungilli, finely diced (1/4 inch pieces)
3/4 cup clam broth or any liquid left from tinned or thawed scungilli (optional)
2 Cups of My Grandmother’s Marinara Sauce
1/4 Cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Snipped fresh basil
Additional sprigs of parsley for garnish
1 lb cooked gemelli or other short pasta

Preparation:

In a large, non-reactive saute pan, simmer the marinara sauce, scungilli, and any additional broth or liquid for 20-30 minutes.

Cook the pasta according to directions, but drain it when it is slightly underdone.

Add the drained pasta to the marinara and allow it to cook in the sauce till it has reached the al dente state. Stir in the herbs and serve the pasta and sauce in shallow bowls. Garnish with parsley sprigs.

Serves 4

It was in Providence, Rhode Island, sometime in the mid-1980′s, that I first encountered cherry pepper shooters. These provocatively named antipasti are Italian-American concoctions: the classic is a cube of aged provolone cheese wrapped in a slice of prosciutto and stuffed into a pickled cherry pepper.

As American as the Sopranos, these two-bite treats are not without antecedents in the cuisine of Italy’s Mezzogiorno. Abruzzese, Pugliese, Campagnese, and Calabrese grew cherry peppers, pickled them, and stuffed them with a mixture of preserved tuna, anchovies, and breadcrumbs before submerging them in olive oil—a treatment still prevalent today. I’ve found several references to il pranzo della contadina, the farmer’s lunch, that include peperoncini ripieni, stuffed cherry peppers.

Until recently, how the Italian-American stuffed peppers had come to be called shooters was a mystery to me. Like Jello-shots, oyster shooters, and jalapeño poppers, a cherry pepper stuffed with both provolone and prosciutto—two seductively salty, rich, and pricey ingredients—projects a certain gastronomic swagger, especially if the pepper itself packs any heat. So, by association, anyone downing something like this in a couple of fast bites also radiates the same bravado. It’s a little bit like lighting a cigar with a five-dollar bill…

In fact, if I had to think of the archtypical consumer of anything called “a shooter,” it would be that loud guy who crashed my last Superbowl party, or one of the bachelorettes with whom you go to Vegas every year.

But I am now confident that I have found the actual origin of the term. During my research, I phoned Daniele Foods, a Rhode Island producer of fine Italian deli products. (They cure their own prosciutto and make stuffed cherry pepper shooters carried by salumerie across North America.) Daniele’s Director of Marketing was personable, though apologetic, when she said they had absolutely no idea where the term ‘cherry pepper shooters’ had originated.

Disappointed, I continued to scrutinize myriad Italian and American websites, eventually returning to Daniele’s own pages. And right there, hiding in plain sight on their Corporate History page, was the story of Daniele’s founder who, back in 1977, discovered that

And there I had it. It wasn’t a linguistic leap to get to ‘pro-SHOOT,’ the pronunciation favored by Americans of southern Italian heritage who often drop the final syllable of a word in their dialects. ‘Pro-shoot’ fits the same profile as ‘mooza-REL,’ ‘provo-LOHN’ and ‘min-e-STROHN.’

I’ll wager that it didn’t take long for ‘proshoot’ to become ‘shooter.’ Once again, se non è vero, è ben trovato.

Nothing about cherry pepper shooters is subtle, and perhaps that explains their tremendous popularity. Invented here, they are a legitimate component of any antipasto platter, as welcome at your next party as your (or my) Cousin Vinnie.

Cherry Pepper Shooters

Ingredients:

12 – 16 Marinated cherry peppers
1/2 Lb. Sharp Provolone cheese
4 – 6 Slices prosciutto (approximately 1/8 Lb.)
Olive Oil
1 Large clove garlic, peeled and sliced

Preparation:

Rinse the cherry peppers under running water. With a paring knife, remove the stems. Using a melon-baller, or grapefruit knife, remove the seeds and ribs.

Cut the provolone into cubes small enough to fit into the cherry peppers. Wrap each piece of cheese with a thin ribbon of prosciutto. Stuff one into each pepper.

Place the peppers in a clean glass jar, distributing the garlic as you go. Fill the jar with enough olive oil to cover the peppers. Let sit, refrigerated, overnight before serving.

Use the shooters within one week. The remaining oil will be a delicious addition to any salad.

Serve shooters at room temperature with lemon wedges.

The most basic combination of olives, carrots, garlic, mint and hot pepper appears a as dressing for tuna and rabbit in traditional Sicilian cooking. But Middletown, Connecticut, is the only place where I have found stimparata to be a dish in its own right.

Variant spellings of the word stimparata, stimperata, stemperata remind us, once again, that the national language of Italy has been codified for little more than a century.

Stimparata means “stamped,” referring to the way the olives were split open. For this task, my Sicilian grandfather’s weapon of choice was a glass milk bottle. He’d line up a dozen olives on the kitchen counter and work along, smashing them with the bottom of the bottle before sweeping them into a bowl. When dairies phased out home milk delivery, he made a concession to modern times and adopted a glass Coke bottle. You’ll get an equally good result splitting the olives with the side of a cleaver or the bottom of a small frying pan.

When you buy the olives, choose the largest variety you can find. I seek out olives known as Sicilian Colossal or Green Colossal. But any large, firm-fleshed, green variety will be fine. (I find the texture of commercially pitted olives to be less satisfactory and prefer the firmer olives I pit myself.) When you do your shopping, though, you might want to consider buying more than you think you’ll need.

My grandfather’s use of celery was probably his American substitution for fennel, which would have been more readily available in Sicily. Celery does appear in modern Italian stimparata recipes, but this may reflect the realities of cross-fertilization: Italian-American recipes migrating back to Italy. Mint, a legacy of Sicily’s medieval Arab population, is what really tags this recipe as a Sicilian treatment of common Mediterranean ingredients.

I’ve often brought Stimparata to a party, but I’ve found that my antipasto rarely makes it into the house. I’ve yet to learn that offering the host and hostess a small taste before entering their party is dangerous. Before I know it, we’ve settled in on the front porch, and soon I have nothing to contribute but an empty container.

Stimparata
Olive Salad

For each pound of olives, you’ll need —

2 Medium carrots, peeled, quartered lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 Stalk of celery split lengthwise and sliced thinly
2 (or more) Cloves of garlic, peeled, and sliced thinly
4 Tbs. Fresh spearmint*, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Red wine vinegar
2 – 3 Tbs. Olive oil
Freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. Red pepper flakes

Preparation:

Place the olives on a hard surface and strike them with the side of a cleaver ( or the bottom of a small, heavy frying pan) to break them in two. Note that the pit may or may not come out. This didn’t matter to my grandfather, but remove the pits if you wish.

Place the smashed olives in a non-reactive bowl. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, mint, and vinegar and toss together. Add approximately half the olive oil, then taste. Add a little more oil or vinegar if necessary. Add the black pepper and red pepper flakes and stir again.

Cover and store in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before serving. This gives the garlic a chance to mellow, and dissipates any of its harshness.

Stir the stimparata again before serving at room temperature, either on its own or as part of an antipasto platter.

On the Italian-American culinary time-line, chicken wings have come to roost only recently. Their origins are unambiguous. Witnesses and anecdotal sources disagree only as to whether it was the owner, Frank Bellissimo, or his wife,Teresa, who actually invented Buffalo Chicken Wings in 1964 at their Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. Certainly, no one disputes that the Anchor Bar hatched the combination of hot sauce, celery, and blue cheese dressing as accompaniments for fried chicken wings. The wings quickly secured a place in mid-century American bar culture, and their proliferation has been rapid.

Like Spaghetti with Meatballs before them, chicken wings first had their broadest appeal for non-Italians. In fact, they’ve given rise to an entire genre of restaurant dedicated to chicken wings. The marquee outside one very popular Sarasota restaurant recently proclaimed Buffalo Chicken Focaccia is Back! I don’t know when it arrived nor when it departed, but I’m sorry that it has returned. (In fact, I thought about calling the American-Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Focaccia.) Anyway, I think you see my point…

Nevertheless, chicken wings fit into the Italian-American dining style because they fill the need for “just a little something” before the main meal. Their delectable flavor inspires conversation among friends, and if you exercise a degree of restraint, they won’t impede your enjoyment of the meal to come.

When I was in graduate school, I fell in with a crowd that liked a cookout from time to time. In fact, they liked a cookout for nearly every meal. So one afternoon, I thought I’d share with them my grandfather’s technique for grilled marinated chicken. But a grad student budget precluded a chicken banquet, so I bought several pounds of chicken wings, marinated them, and tossed them onto the grill. My Sicilian grandfather’s classic was reborn as my Patented Tuscan Chicken Wings, a name I had to conjure on the spot when someone asked what I called them. Since those days, my Tuscan Chicken Wings have become my passport to any gathering that involves more than two people and a charcoal grill.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should make clear that my wings are neither patented, nor Tuscan, nor even Italian. However, beginning in the 1970′s, calling anything Tuscan gave it an air of rustic charm while branding it as hip.

Although my grandfather had used red wine to marinate his chicken, my marinade is similar to a recipe using red wine vinegar that I’d found in my first serious Italian food book, The Cooking of Italy by Waverly Root (published in 1968 as one volume of the Time-Life Foods of the World series).

When you prepare this recipe, be sure to buy more chicken wings than you think you’ll need. I’ve never seen leftovers.

My “Patented Tuscan” Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

3 Lbs. Chicken wings
1 Head garlic, cloves separated, peeled, and sliced thinly
½ Bunch flat-leaf Italian parsley, leaves and stems, chopped finely
2 Cups red wine vinegar
Salt & freshly-ground black pepper

Preparation:

If necessary, cut the chicken wings into two pieces. Marinate, covered, with the garlic, parsley, and vinegar for two hours at room temperature.

Start a charcoal fire, and when it has burned to embers, that is to say, when the coals have a uniform gray coating around them, and you are unable to hold your open palm a few inches above the fire for a count of five, grill the wings for about four minutes per side.

Season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

Serves from one to four

Sometime in the 1940′s or ’50′s, garlic bread became one of the signature components of an Italian-American restaurant meal. Unfortunately, the version I remember most vividly was a hapless mixture of margarine and garlic powder slathered on a French baguette.

That lackluster example aside, non-Italians reminiscing about the period confirm that it was not only spaghetti with meatballs that drew them into the neighborhood restaurants; it was the prospect of garlic bread.

American GIs who had served in Europe came home with a taste for artisanal bread unlike the mass-market products of the US. The closest approximation of what they’d come to enjoy was to be found in Little Italy restaurants. In addition, first and second generation Italian-Americans who’d been posted to Italy had encountered the bread of their forebears—toasted as crostini or grilled as bruschetta, both flavored with olive oil and garlic.

While it would have been too labor-intensive for the typical family-run restaurant to offer freshly toasted slices of bread to every diner, one mid-century technological innovation—aluminum foil—made it practical to prepare multiple loaves of seasoned bread and to warm them as needed. It may put aluminum foil in perspective to note that when it debuted, the Swanson TV dinner, sold and served in molded aluminum foil, created as much buzz as tail-fins on Cadillacs.

By 1949, aluminum foil had become a popular method for wrapping food that would be refrigerated or frozen until it was cooked (or reheated). Italian-American restaurant cooks quickly put this new material to good use, enclosing a long loaf of dense Italian bread, that had been split lengthwise so the cut surface could be with brushed garlic and olive oil and then heated in the oven. The seductive fragrance, rising from the “garlic bread” as it was delivered from kitchen to hungry patrons in the dining room, made it an instant success. Furthermore, in most establishments, this treat was served without additional charge. Here was yet another delicious element of “foreign intrigue” that was of entirely American-Italian invention.

Even if they have a track-record of having been produced with less-than-the-best-ingredients, many Almost-Italian standards have honest origins and deserve to be made with the best ingredients available.

Garlic Bread

Use a large, crusty loaf of bread. (We prefer those with denser textures.)

This would be a time to splurge a bit by treating yourself to the same extra virgin olive oil you’ve been using for your salad dressings.

Ingredients:

1 large loaf Italian bread (at least 1 pound)
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 Tbs. Extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. Freshly grated Parmesan
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Mix the garlic with the olive oil and allow the mixture to macerate for 1/2 hour at room temperature. In a separate bowl, combine the Parmesan, oregano, and parsley.

Split the bread lengthwise, and brush the cut surfaces with the garlic/oil mixture. Sprinkle both surfaces with the herbs.

Put the two halves back together, wrap the loaf in aluminum foil, and place it on a sheet pan. Bake for around 10 minutes.

To Serve:

Carefully unwrap the loaf and, using a serrated knife, cut into thick slices. Serve at once.

Serves six

Shrimp Scampi is a relative newcomer to the menus at neighborhood Italian restaurants—probably because it represents the first significant departure from recipes based on tomato sauce. According to the culinary research published on the Food Timeline, “The earliest reference to shrimp scampi in The New York Times is a restaurant advertisement published May 9, 1956 for The Tenakill Restaurant in Englewood NJ.”

Until I began looking into the origins of the dish, it hadn’t occurred to me that scampi, in the Italo-American lexicon, refers as much to the method of preparation as it does to the main ingredient. The word scampi didn’t appear in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary until 1925. At the time, it was defined as the plural form of the Italian word, scampo, “a large shrimp or prawn” and “a dish of shrimp or prawns grilled or sautéed in oil or butter and garlic.”

Away from the Gulf Coast, significant numbers of shrimp dishes didn’t show up on menus until Prohibition, and then, mostly in dainty shrimp salads and the Shrimp Cocktails of our previous post. After WWII, Shrimp Scampi began to appear on the menus of metropolitan, “Continental” restaurants. This was also the period when American French restaurants began to add “Italian” specialties to their offerings. Dishes like Chicken Tetrazzini and Spaghetti Bolognaise (note the French spelling) would appear cheek-by-jowl with Duck a l’Orange and Sole Meunière.

For generations, Italians have enjoyed the simple classic, gamberi alla casalinga, home-style shrimp. The dish is a simple combination of shrimp, sautéed in olive oil with garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice. Shrimp Scampi includes butter and white wine.

I have a theory about how these last two defining ingredients got into the dish we call Shrimp Scampi: I believe a restaurant chef in America became aware of Gamberi alla Casalinga, and in the process of trying to Frenchify it for an upscale clientele, added the wine and butter. From that elevation, Shrimp Scampi crept back to the Little Italy communities, where it has established a comfortable and permanent residence—more often than not on a bed of linguine.

As we like to say whenever we cannot offer irrefutable proof, Se non e vero, e ben trovato. If it isn’t true, it makes a good story.

Shrimp Scampi

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Lbs. shrimp (16- 20 count), shelled and deveined
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 Tbs. Unsalted butter
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ Cup dry white wine
Juice of 1/2 lemon
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
1 Tbs. Grated lemon zest
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Season the shrimp on both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, then add the butter. When the bubbles have begun to subside, add the shrimp. Cook, without moving them, for 1 minute. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute longer. Turn the shrimp over and cook for 2 minutes more, or until they begin to turn pink. Transfer the shrimp to a bowl.

Return the skillet to the heat and pour in the wine and lemon juice. Boil the liquid to evaporate the alcohol and to reduce the sauce, about 2 – 3 minutes. Scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Stir the lemon zest and the first 4 Tbs. of parsley into the sauce. Taste for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as necessary. Pour the sauce over the shrimp, and toss to combine.

To Serve:

Divide the shrimp among 4 plates or arrange on a platter and serve, garnished with the remaining parsley.

Neighborhood Italian restaurants would very likely serve this over a pound of linguine. I prefer to serve it as-is, with a salad and plenty of crusty bread as a vehicle for the sauce.

Serves four